Carhopper : New Concept in The Car Hire Industry

There comes a time that a trend or a specific innovation can really shake up an industry. Take the case of car rental for example. For years, the business has been dominated by car rental companies with the largest fleet.

These companies are successful for a reason but because of a lack of real competition, they slack off and fail to innovate. As a result, people get tired of how they do business but realize that they have to suck it up because there’s no real option out there. In simple words – unhappy customers.

Good thing we won’t really have to deal with that anymore. Well, at least according to CarHopper.

CarHopper is an online booking platform for car rentals. Their web and the mobile app gives you access to some of the most unique cars. Their tagline “What story do you want to drive today” hits the nail on the head with the number of cars available to their customers. With cars ranging from Jeeps to Bentleys, McLarens, and Ferraris, you can truly have a different story every time you drive.

One might wonder, how do they do this?

Simple.

Instead of just keeping cars in their garage for people to rent, CarHopper connects customers with hundreds if not thousands of local car-rental companies. These are the car-rental companies you might not have heard of because they are independently owned unlike the bigger names in the car rental business.

As a result, one simple search that includes your location, area, and pickup and drop-off dates will provide you with a list of available cars you can use. While it is true that CarHopper is more focused on the upper-class car renters with the type of cars that list, they also have a number of choices for those looking for style but lack deeper pockets.

Thanks to CarHopper, you can pick out not only the make, model, and year of the car you are going to rent. You even get to choose the color and other specifics. This is because their database lists the complete details of each and every car they have on their roster.

According to their site, CarHopper won’t make car rental companies pay to include their fleet in the CarHopper roster. Still, this doesn’t mean that any car rental company can list their cars.

According to their CEO, Bora Hamamcioglu, CarHopper handpicks their partners based on their service standards, customer records, and their willingness to embrace the innovations of CarHopper. Hamamcioglu further added that they aim a scenario where their customers have the same level of confidence on CarHopper and the company they are renting from.

Aside from doing quality checks on their affiliates, CarHopper also does MVR background checks on those who want to rent cars through their web and app. This is to ensure that they are in line with the high standards of the CarHopper community.

As soon as they get confirmation of their booking, all you have to do as a renter is to go the pickup location at the pre-determined date and time. Once you hit the check-in button on the app, you are good to go.

The Miami-based company is said to be taking the car rental by storm.

Of course, not everybody is excited about it but those that are in the car rental business have high hopes for the business. While not exactly disruptive, CarHopper will change the way people look at car rentals. Family run car hire companies are trying to target customers who have a large travel budget.

These consumers look for comfort, security, insurance and peace of mind, something that CarHopper might be in a position to offer. This was my major takeaway from the conversation I had with Simon, the CEO and Founder of carhiremaltagroup.com.

The affiliates CarHopper works with are the car rental companies who are looking for other ways to reach new customers. Due to the nature of the business, CarHopper attracts a much younger and mobile demographic that traditional marketing rarely touches. For the new customers, the streamlined process and the lack of paperwork seal the deal.

The future of CarHopper is quite promising with its inventory growing to over $9 million late last year. Will their business model really change the way people do car rentals?

It depends, as the appeal of CarHopper is geared towards the younger demographic. And right now they have not been very successful at targeting mid aged holiday makers. But we will most definitely see a future where even the biggest car rental companies will have no choice but to innovate themselves and adapt to this change.

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